Newly-crowned “Star of Tomorrow” Dillon “Dilly Suede” Thomas, 20, knew he had won the National Youth Action Committee (NYAC)-sponsored “Stars of Tomorrow Calypso Competition” when family members’ screams of joy, woke him up yesterday morning.

“They got the results before me. They woke me up. They were excited,” Thomas told Newsday by telephone yesterday.

The last of ten siblings, Thomas said, “two boys and seven girls. It was real noise.”

Thomas of Goodwood, Tobago, who won the title with the entry “For a Crown” from a field of 16 competitors at the UWI, St Augustine Campus on Thursday night, spoke with Newsday by telephone from Tobago. He spent Thursday night with family members who reside in Trinidad and returned to Tobago on Friday’s midday flight.

Asked if he expected to win the title, Thomas said, “I went into the competition thinking I would win. I was almost certain during the first half of the competition, that I had it locked.”

However, during the second half, he said, “I had very strong competition, so my expectations dropped.”

As the “Star of Tomorrow” Thomas will automatically be a finalist in the NYAC’s “Young King Calypso Competition” to be held later this month. Last year, he placed fifth in the “Stars of Tomorrow” competition.

Speaking about this year’s entry, Thomas said that his brother, Sheldon Reid, wrote his lyrics, but he gave him the topic and the idea behind it. His brother interpreted the song.

Unlike most of the other competitors, who used props, Thomas’s voice alone had the audience clapping and rocking to his song and rhythms.

He is a member of the Tobago Drama Guild and a University of the West Indies Open Campus student, pursuing a certificate in threatre, Thomas said he has been singing competitively for the past four years.